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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (692467)	7/18/2005 11:06:51 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Facts: What few people may realize, though, is that just three months after the company's power-plant conspiracy, which resulted in rolling blackouts throughout Northern California, Enron was making its case to the White House for why the government shouldn't cap energy prices. And Vice President Dick Cheney, who met with then-Enron Chairman Ken Lay in April 2001 and was handed a secret memo stating the company's policy wishes, subsequently echoed Enron's position on why price caps are unnecessary. I obtained a copy of the three-page memo in early 2002 and showed that a number of Enron's recommendations either made it into Cheney's energy plan or were reflected in comments by senior Bush administration officials. What wasn't known at the time was the extent of Enron's market manipulation even as it was influencing national energy policy. The tapes were released last week by a utility in Washington state that's suing Enron over a costly power contract. They include a phone conversation between an Enron trader and a Las Vegas energy official. The trader, identified by the utility as Bill Williams, is heard coaxing the Nevada official, identified only as Rich, to watch for a period of peak energy demand and then shut down a power plant that was providing juice to beleaguered California. "This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing," Williams says. "We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down." Rich replies: "OK, so we're just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced-outage type of thing? And that's cool?" "Hopefully," Williams answers, and both men laugh. sfgate.com